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A new study, led by Prof. Pablo Saenz-Agudelo at the Austral University of Chile, reveals the importance of large females, and stable breeding pairs, to a population of panda clownfish (Amphiprion polymnus) in Bootless Bay, Papua New Guinea. Newly-settled juveniles were assigned to parents in the focal population using DNA parentage analysis. We found that large females do indeed contribute disproportionately to local population replenishment, providing further support for efforts to protect large females within fished populations. And interestingly, stable breeding pairs were also more successful than new pairs in which the original male had died. Read more here:

Just out, a new paper from the Fish Ecology Lab and collaborators describing a new aggregation site for juvenile whale sharks in the southern Red Sea. Interestingly, the sex ratios of the sharks we encountered was approximately 1:1, unlike all other aggregation sites that are dominated by males. We don’t understand the significance of the relatively high numbers of juvenile females in the Red Sea aggregation yet, but it does highlight the potential importance of this site to whale shark populations in the Indian Ocean and possibly beyond. Check out the paper (open access at PLoS ONE) using the URL below:

A new paper from the Fish Ecology Lab and collaborators has documented the remarkable diving abilities of Chilean devil rays (Mobula tarapacana) in the central North Atlantic. Dive profiles revealed that the rays are diving to depths of almost 2 km where they are encountering water temperatures as low as 3 degrees C. The rays were instrumented with pop-up satellite archival transmitting (PSAT) tags on Princess Alice seamount in the Azores. While definitive evidence is lacking, we assume that the rays are diving to forage on meso- and bathypelagic fishes that are abundance at depth in the central North Atlantic. Check out the paper (open access) here:

Camrin and Simon back from a few days in the Farasan Banks, Saudi Arabian Red Sea. We took a break from tagging mantas and whale sharks to dive on reefs that were made famous by Jacques Cousteau 50 years ago. The reefs are still in good shape, although the lack of reef sharks is in stark contrast to Cousteaus’s original underwater footage from this area. More soon on a whale shark aggregation that we have discovered here in the southern Red Sea and why it is potentially significant to whale shark populations throughout the global ocean.

Camrin Braun has a new paper out in PLoS ONE on the diving behavior of reef mantas in the Saudi Arabian Red Sea. The data comes from pop-up satellite archival transmitting (PSAT) tags that have revolutionized our understanding of the vertical and horizontal movements of large ocean animals over the last 15 years. You can check it out here:

The work was conducted as part of Cam’s Master’s thesis work while at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), working with Prof. Michael Berumen. More to come on these fascinating rays soon!

Li Ling Hamady successfully defended her PhD thesis the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography – congratulations!! She also has just published a paper in PLOS ONE on extreme longevity in northwest Atlantic white sharks that you can check out here: